Statement of Dana Joel Gattuso,
Director, Center for Environmental and Regulatory Affairs,
The National Center for Public Policy Research

Washington, D.C. - The following is a statement by Dana Joel Gattuso, environmental policy director of the National Center for Public Policy Research:

It has now been 57 days since the disastrous BP oil spill, and President Obama has still failed to take charge. Last night's scare mongering address to the nation -- avowing that the answer to the oil spill is for Americans to end their "addiction" to affordable energy -- was no exception.

The American people want to hear that the President has a doable plan for stopping the continued spewing of oil and for cleaning up the mess. They do not want to hear him exploit a tragic oil drilling accident to fulfill his political agenda of replacing fossil fuels with costly, unviable alternative fuels that will drastically change our way of life. Nor do Americans want to be penalized for BP's actions.

Furthermore, President Obama is not being honest with Americans when he says we're running out of places to drill. As Patrick Creighton of the Institute for Energy Research tells the Los Angeles Times today, "We have over a trillion barrels of oil shale out West. Billions of barrels of untapped oil in Alaska. And more coal and natural gas than we know what to do with."

The American people want to see action, not political opportunism from our President.